Hello again everyone, I’m taking full advantage of the rainy weather and Fred Nickols Performance Improvement website. I found another article on Fred’s site called “Serendipitous Performance Consulting.” Again, I encourage you to check Fred’s site out for information, knowledge, and tools related to knowledge work, Performance Management, Training, and Development.
In this article, Fred posits that considerable gains in performance can be made quickly, easily, and inexpensively. He explains these claims through five case studies drawn from his own experience. In the article’s conclusion, Fred talks through some principles that we can use to inform our performance improvement efforts. Each of these case studies highlights one of the principles he expounds on at the end of the article.
As I said in my last post, the core audience for this article is those in the Human Performance Improvement field, but these principles can apply to anyone in the knowledge worker field. In the context of the article, Fred explains that performance improvement is all about keeping your eyes open, asking lots and lots of questions, and jumping on opportunities when they present themselves. Fred has many years of experience in this, so I will take his word for it that he is a reliable source of information and knowledge.
In my last post, I talked about what questions I would ask given a few minutes with him. If he were presenting this article at a conference and asked if anyone had questions, I would probably ask if there was such a thing as a too dumb question to ask? I think I would also ask if there were opportunities that he jumped on that turned out not to be opportunities and what he learned from them? Asking these questions would give me a better sense of what you can and should ask about and red flags to be aware of when an opportunity pops up.
The principles that Fred talks about are ones that I can apply in my current work as an Instructional Designer and will help me refine and fine-tune the questions I ask, the processes I follow, and the processes I should be following. His last principle of “Keep It Simple” is one we can all relate to and should never forget.
That’s it, have a good one and talk to you later.
Scott